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the continuing saga of the turtle pond

So DH and I are the lucky owners of two red-eared slider turtles. Anyone familiar with turtle husbandry knows that those cute little suckers that come in those cute little plastic terrariums (ours were confiscated by my mom from the airport) outgrow those cute little plastic terrariums, outgrow ordinary fishtanks, and outgrow the 100 gallon custom tank in just 3 short years. They grow to the size of dinner plates and can live to be about 75 years old. Ours are at about the size of salad plates, and are too big to fit in their tank anymore (they get in each others' way and attack one another), and they were evicted from the front bedroom when it became the baby's room, and the tank is too large to squoosh in the living room, so we decided to build a pond.

First we looked at those cute little pond kits that look like wading pools for turtles, but they were all too small based on an appropriate turtles-to-gallons-of-water ratio. We think about digging a pond, but we don't know what kind of pumps and filters and whatnot we'd need. We have someone come out to give us an estimate for what would effectively be a 6,000 gallon, landscaped, waterfalled turtle paradise, but paradise comes at a price of nearly $10,000. Ahem?

So we go back to the idea of digging our own. We check out a few pond places, get an idea of what equipment we'd need, and DH starts digging about a month before Blair is born... and we've had a 2 foot deep, 8x12 foot wide hole and an accompanying giant pile of dirt in our backyard since then.

One of DH's baseball teammates is a contractor, and last week he paid HIM to finish turtle paradise. The hole is now 2 feet deeper, nicely squared off, caged in with rebar, and the concrete guy is coming tomorrow. There is a 2 ft wall around it, so it looks more like a big rectangular water feature-type pond than a hole in the ground. And after paying the contractor, the concrete guy, and buying all the pumps and filters and whatnot... well, we'll still save SOME money...

It's going to look pretty cool though! We haven't decided how to do the exterior of the pond walls --in brick, or river rocks, or that stacked slate veneer.. we're still deciding on that.

Anyway, before this gets TOO long, I just wanted to put the word out there that if you have red-eared sliders that you can't care for, they can come live in turtle paradise. We're taking my sister's two turtles, and I think there will be room for a few more in the 3,000 gallon pond.

Re: the continuing saga of the turtle pond

  • Congrats on your paradise! They get bigger with their surroundings as we learned the hard way too. Our turtle ended up being as big as a full size plate and my cousins adopted Petry. He lives with them in an extra bathtub they have and roams around the house. His friends are the three legged bearded dragon and the newest turtle they have added.

  • Wow!  My DH would love that!  Funny tho that our condo doesn't come with a backyard to accommodate his landscaping fantasies.  Post pics if you can!  I've love to see it too!  Have fun!
  • ohhhh sounds so cool - turtle paradise is right! I can't wait to see pics when it is finished!
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